Author's Note: An uncommonly long chapter, but there was a place I wanted to go that a shorter chapter wouldn't allow for.

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"Sarah?"

Sarah jerked upright and blinked her eyes rapidly.

Hoggle wobbled up to her and peered into her face. "You weren't sleeping, here, were you?" he asked anxiously.

Sarah was certain she had been, but she shook her head and wiped her mouth. "No, I was thinking. Hi, Hoggle. How are you?"

"I've been better," he grumbled, "Come on! It's not safe for you to be around here."

The events of the past days sprang to her mind and Sarah stood up quickly, panic surging in her blood. She remembered the Goblin King at the window- strange and feral and hungry. So unbelievably hungry!

"I didn't know he was a vampire," she told Hoggle seriously.

He looked just as seriously back at her- "What's a vampire?"

Sarah didn't answer right away. She stood up, stretched and followed Hoggle out of the room.

She didn't remember very much about the Castle from her first trip through it. The vague impression of stone and dirt was the best she could come up with. Silence, too. Deathly silence.

"Why'd you come back?" Hoggle demanded, taking her down a set of stairs, "Watch out! Some of them's missing."

Sarah yelped when her foot sank right through what should have been solid stone. She stumbled, falling forward to avoid dropping through the non-existent floor to her death. Falling into Hoggle's back, the ordeal ended with the both of them rolling to the bottom of the staircase.

Sarah wanted to cry. It was just one more degradation on top of everything else she'd had to suffer. Could nothing go right for her? It wasn't the Underground, either. This always happened! She tripped over her own feet whenever she was late to class. She burned anything she tried to cook. She always spilled her drink, whether it was soda or water. She always lost her books and her money.

It was too much! And why her?

"I'm going to cry," she announced to no one in particular.

"No, no," Hoggle pleaded, stumbling to his feet somehow, "Er… don't cry. No need to, is there? Nothing to cry about. Just a little fall and… you're not hurt, are you?"

She looked up at his worried face and that enormous nose impressed itself upon her again. Unbidden, she laughed, even if it did catch on the lump in her throat. "No," Sarah sighed, "I'm not. Not hurt. It's just… Oh, Hoggle, it never goes right, does it?"

Hoggle didn't see what was so funny about anything so he fussed and grumbled until she managed to stand up. He was still grumbling when he shooed her out of the Castle itself and far away from the tunnel with the vampires.

"You never trust the Undergrounders," he said sagely, "Dangerous, they are."

"Undergrounders?"

"They live under the ground," he pointed out, "They don't like the sun. Some say it makes 'em weak but I don't believe it."

"Vampires aren't supposed to go out in the sun," Sarah added, thinking it over with a frown, "Maybe it's just something magical in the Underground."

"What's a vampire?" Hoggle asked again.

"Oh, creatures that drink people's blood. They're not alive, so they have to drink blood from other people."

"And what did you call them again?"

"Vampires."

Hoggle nodded his head vigorously and said, "It's them," in a satisfied sort of way.

"But Jareth didn't seem like any kind of vampire." 'You never call me by name or title.' Sarah pushed the memory away with a shiver. She didn't want to call him, ever. She made a mental note not to mention his name again in case it summoned him. "I don't understand."

"Sarah, why'd you come back?" Hoggle asked again.

Sarah didn't know how to tell him. She didn't understand it very much herself. "I don't know." It was hard to say that she just known he would come back. What had he said about it?

'You never once expected consequences?'

"He came to find me, up there," she said, kicking at a stump of bark, "He said it wasn't finished."

Hoggle coughed but didn't say anything. They walked for a while, changing direction every few minutes because Hoggle was certain the vampires would be after them at any minute. Sarah didn't trust Jareth's overtures of protection very much, either; she went along with Hoggle's clumsy attempts to disguise their trail.

Eventually they stopped when the Labyrinth loomed before them, blackened and broken.

It looked quite sad, Sarah realized, like a big dog that couldn't do anything because it was chained up in the backyard.

"How did this happened, Hoggle?"

The dwarf scratched his head. "It just happened," he explained, "He said it was you."

"How could I do this? All I did was take the baby back."

"It's magic," Hoggle said sagely, "You changed the magic."

Sarah shook her head and bent down to pick up a piece of stone. It was still warm in her palm and somehow that didn't surprise her. The Underground was nothing that it seemed. So why wouldn't stone be warm? Nothing to say it was impossible.

"Sarah..."

"This makes no sense."

"Sarah?"

"How could something like this happen, Hoggle? How can I have anything to do with all this? I was talking to the Goblin King, not to the Labyrinth," she continued, trying to reason this out with both Hoggle and herself, "All I said was…"

"Don't say it!"

"Why can't I say it? It's true."

"Sarah," Hoggle gulped, tugging on the edge of her shirt.

"Jareth," Sarah used the name deliberately, "Has no power over me."

"She said it," Hoggle moaned.

"She certainly did," another voice said snidely.

Sarah new better than to whirl around and look surprised. She tensed a little because she couldn't help it and then she took a deep breath and turned very casually. "What do you want?"

Lyndon bowed without a smile. "His Majesty demands your return," he said, "Follow me."

Sarah dug in her heels. "What does he want?"

"If you follow me, he will tell you himself," Lyndon pointed out ironically. He made to start back but Sarah hadn't moved from her place. He stopped and looked at her, superciliously looking down his aquiline nose at her.

"I'm talking to a friend," Sarah said formally, "Please tell His Majesty that I will come back as soon as I finish."

The vampire was not used to taking orders from girls. He had not been brought up to it, and his turning had not put him into a position to change his ways. He chose to follow another of his kind because he was not a leader. He refused to change for this child.

Sarah saw his hand move very openly to the holster by his side.

"Humans imagine the most extraordinary means of killing," he said, drawing the gun almost negligently, "Stupidly, they don't know how to control the hands those weapons fall into."

Sarah caught her breath. "The King doesn't want me dead," she blurted out. Only because her mouth never had stopped getting her into trouble. She could have kicked herself for it, but her lips had moved and the words had dropped out before she could stop herself. Sarah felt the same paralysing fear Jareth had inspired when the gun levelled at her.

"He ordered me to take you back any way that I had to."

Hoggle was gone. Sarah looked around for help- though what help a dwarf could be was beyond her- and Hoggle had left. She couldn't blame him; Hoggle was a coward. She felt a bit like running too.

"Aren't vampires supposed to use swords or something?"

"Vampires use a lot of weapons. Guns are efficient in the Underground."

Sarah moved very slowly, walking towards him because she reasoned it out in her head that he would probably lower that gun if she did as she was told. If she went back quietly, he might even put the gun away. "Alright," she soothed, "I'll come with you."

"Good." The gun went back.

Lyndon didn't feel up to chasing the girl if she chose to run away. Humans always exerted energy in quite the wrong way. Vampires liked the chase.

He caught the girl's arm as she attempted to walk past him and lifted the wrist in his hands. One finger on her pulse and he knew that she was petrified, that her heart was pounding with fear and adrenaline, that her brain was racing with a jumble of thoughts. Her green eyes snapped to him and he could see the pupils dilate as she tried to pull away.

He sniffed delicately at her wrist to inhale the scent of living flesh. The finger on her pulse changed, claw dangerously close to skin.

"A fact for you, Milady," he murmured, "Vampires do not bite to kill. They bite to excite, when they mean only to taste or tease. Teeth hardly ever leave a wound wide enough to sup. To kill, we use our claws."

The claw pressed just a little harder. Not enough to break young, supple flesh, not even enough to bruise. But enough to be a warning.

"We tear open the vein," he ended, "And that is a wound wide enough to feed from."

Sarah didn't know where she got the strength, but she opened her mouth to protest, to plead, to do anything that got her hand out of his grasp, and she said, "Get your filthy hands off me. Jareth will not be pleased if I tell him."

Lyndon dropped her hand with an unreadable stare from his fiery eyes. "Follow me, Milady," he said.

Sarah seethed, relief fuelling her anger until she wanted to kick the straight back she was following. She was tired of following people. From one place to the other. Not just in the Underground, Aboveground too. She'd never wanted to move to a small town, to move to a new house with a new family.

She'd been led around like a bear on a chain for too long!

There was a decision to be made here, Sarah decided. She'd waited for Jareth to get her back Underground because, yes, she'd known at the back of her mind that there would be consequences. She'd followed him around and let him scare her and mock her and confuse her and now she was done with all that.

He could send her back.

Jareth met her in the Cathedral, back to his human form and smiling sarcastically as he approved aloud of the colour in her face. "The walk evidently did you good," he said.

Sarah tilted her chin, folded her arms and centred herself. There was no use shouting. Shouting never got her anywhere. If she behaved like a child, Jareth would treat her like one. The trick was to be definite and clear- "Jareth, I want to go home," she said bluntly.

"Oh?" He mimicked her position, hands on his hips and faint smile on his lips.

Treating her just like a child, damn him! "Yeah. I have no interest in the Underground and no interest in anything you have to say. My family must be sick with worry and I'd like to go home to them."

"So soon, Sarah? We were only getting started. Now, come. The night is almost upon us and there is a lot to do."

"You haven't heard me right," she said mulishly, "Send me back now."

Jareth looked at Lyndon over Sarah's shoulder and his eyes narrowed. "What happened out there?" he asked quietly.

"She spoke with the dwarf," Lyndon supplied woodenly.

"And?"

"And nothing," Sarah snapped, pushing her way stubbornly back into the conversation, "This has nothing to do with Lyndon." She wouldn't tell tales. The vampire hadn't hurt her; Jareth's suspicions were enough to assure her that he wouldn't unless he wanted to brave disobeying a direct order from the Goblin King. "Send me back."

Jareth looked her in the eye and weighed his option. "Impossible," he said.

"Do I have to say the words?"

He raised an eyebrow and this time the smile was thin and not very pleasant. "We have established that fact the last time, Sarah. Believe me, I have no wish to keep you longer than I have to."

Somehow he always made her feel a burden- small and childish and getting in the way. Sarah didn't like that. It hurt a side of her that she didn't want to think about. "Good. Then we'll both feel happier if you send me back."

"No."

"I'll say the words. I will."

"You may try. You've done all the damage on that score that you can do."

She reddened and noticed all the activity in the Cathedral had stopped. The vampires were all watching her, hostile and suspicious and menacing. She moved away from them, turning her back on most of them so she could concentrate on their leader alone. That was the weak spot- the one they feared more than they hated her.

"You have no power over me," Sarah snapped.

The vampires fanned out around her though she couldn't notice it. Not with her back to them. Jareth noticed it; he expected it. He didn't react however. He wouldn't give her that satisfaction. Even if he made brief eye contact with Lyndon and shook his head slightly in warning.

"Let me go," Sarah warned, "I'm finished here."

She wasn't finished. The Goblin King knew that. But he wouldn't be rushed, pushed into making announcements before she was prepared for them. That way lay trouble, for she would make a decision in haste.

Jareth began to smile. "I propose a deal," he said silkily, "A trade, if you will."

He reached up a hand to cup his chin in thought. "My goblins have something of yours. I can help you regain it. For a price, naturally."

Sarah didn't believe him. "What would I want from the goblins?"

"Do we have a deal?"

"This is all another game. No. Send me back." But she was thrown off balance.

Jareth moved a little closer, lowering his voice as if offering something for her ears alone. Something confidential. "You will want to save him, Sarah."

"Toby," she gasped.

"No, no, Sarah. Not Toby. Your friend. The monster."

"Ludo?"

"The monster will be released in exchange for… shall we say one day? You, Sarah, will promise to stay for one day in my company if I let the monster go."

"The only monster around here is you. Ludo is the sweetest, gentlest beast in the Underground. He never hurt anybody. You can't kill him."

"I wasn't going to," Jareth pointed out, "The goblins can do that on their own."

"That's not fair!"

"And what have we always said about fairness?"

Green eyes kindling, Sarah marched forward. The Goblin King was standing there with that smug grin on his face and even if she risked death she wasn't about to let him think he could walk all over her.

"It's not fair," she seethed, "To threaten to kill Ludo because he didn't do anything. I did. I ran your Labyrinth and I beat it. I broke your Castle and if you want to get revenge, then do it to me."

Jareth went rigid even if the smirk didn't fade. He gazed down at Sarah's face and pursed his lips, thinking it over. He could see Lyndon over her shoulder and his second in command had his gun in hand. Sarah didn't know it and Jareth had only to nod his head.

"You can't touch me," Sarah taunted, "Because you have no power over me. So you'll go for innocent beasts like Ludo instead?"

Jareth felt his own lip curl. She was taunting him! The damned girl was digging her own grave in some reckless desire to protect her friend!

The gun was aimed at her back and Jareth had only to nod. Not even that. Just to look up. She wouldn't even feel it. And the trouble would end. The Underground would be at peace. Jareth would see to that.

"If you would stay," he said coldly, "I would not have to bargain. Give me your word. I give you mine that Ludo will be set free. Unharmed, might I add."

"You're unbelievable," she breathed, shaking her head in a daze, "And what happens if I stay?"

"You stay with my protection."

"I'm supposed to trust you?"

Jareth shrugged. "What choice do you have?"

She looked up into his eyes, looking from one to the other. "Alright," she said disgustedly, "Alright. I'll stay for one day. Promise to send me home unharmed after that."

"As you wish."

Later, Lyndon sat with his King at the table in the Cathedral, placing the unused gun on the table between them. "You made four promises to force one day more from her."

"False promises, Lyndon. You heard them."

"But you made them."

Jareth leaned forward, lowering his voice and somehow sounding harder and more lethal. "What were you proposing I do? I had no other choice."

Lyndon looked pointedly down to the gun.

"She will keep her promise," Jareth told him, "She always does. And I will keep mine. No one is to touch her."